Letters of Lydia Maria Child, with a biographical introduction by John G. Whittier and an appendix by Wendell Phillips.

LETTERS. 141
sparkle with poetry; but it is 1" sparkle," not glow.
It is from outward, not inward light. They tell me
she is a German, resident in England; and that accounts for the un-Englishness of some of her phraseology. A Jewess she is, of course. I am always
pleased to have the Jews do anything great; as I am
to have the colored people, or any other persecuted
race. I was so glad the Rothschilds and others compelled the Emperor of Austria to repeal his contemptuous law, by resolving to have no commercial relations with Austrians! The silly despot concluded it
was safer to offend the Pope than to displease the
wealthy Jews.
TO MRS. S. B. SHAW.
1860.
I have made an excursion lately, which is unusual
for me. Miss L. wanted to go to Newbury to see
her sister, and was too feeble to go alone, and asked
me to go with her. Her sister owns a mill, where
the Artichoke joins the Merrimack....
Friend Whittier lives about four miles from the
mill, across the river. The bridge was being repaired, which made it necessary to go a long way
round. I was not sorry, for the scenery was lovely.
We rode along the Merrimack nearly all the way.
The sunshiine was rippling it with gold, and the oars
of various little boats and rafts were dropping silver
as they went. I think nature never made such a
vivid impression on me as it has this summer. I
don't know whether it is because I have so very few
human ties, or whether it is that I feel a sort of farewell tenderness for the earth, because I am growing
old.